The FBI’s unveiling of a digital billboard in Times Square as part of an effort to enlist public help in finding suspects and displaying other “security messages” sounds like a hybrid of George Orwell’s 1984 and the wacky dictatorship portrayed in the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The Running Man.

“The FBI’s most wanted will soon be staring at tourists in Times Square. The agency will unveil a digital billboard there Friday,” reports the Associated Press.

“It will air pictures of fugitives and missing persons. It also will publicize high-priority security messages. Besides criminals, it will draw attention to kidnap victims and missing children. The FBI hopes the public can help find them.”

What these “high priority security messages” will actually be remains unclear – perhaps the word OBEY in huge black letters on a white background? Or just more fearmongering about why you have to submit to those friendly NYPD officers searching your bags in the name of fighting Al-Qaeda? And in a few years – who knows? Report illegal gun owners? Report thought criminals?

Huge telescreens barking out messages from the government and turning the population into honorary Stasi members constantly on the lookout for criminals and terrorists – where have we seen that before?

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A more contemporary comparison can be drawn with the 1987 Arnold Schwarzenegger movie The Running Man, in which one of the opening scenes shows a giant TV in downtown Los Angeles encouraging citizens to turn in their own family members.

The opening text of The Running Man doesn’t sound too far away from the situation in 2010. Since the film is set in 2017, give it seven more years and we’ll probably get there.

“By 2017 the world economy has collapsed. Food, natural resources and oil are in short supply. A police state, divided into paramilitary zones, rules with an iron hand.”

“Television is controlled by the state….All art, music and communications are censored. No dissent is tolerated (Cass Sunstein’s free speech ban has been implemented) and yet a small resistance movement has managed to survive underground.”

9 minutes and 30 seconds into the film, the telescreen barks out: “Cadre kids – don’t forget – October is bonus recruitment month – earn a double bonus for reporting on a family member!” Watch the clip.

Since the fact that increasing numbers of Americans becoming informants and turning in their own family members to earn cash is now being celebrated by the corporate media, how long will it be before the FBI billboards encourage the public to be on the lookout for disobedient slaves who refuse to take their microchip or turn in their firearms?